No passing up the run

In quarterbacks' league, rushing attacks still win

Associated Press

Published 11:54 pm, Thursday, January 3, 2013

Photo: BARTON SILVERMAN

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Washington Redskins wide receiver Santana Moss (89) runs for a touchdown in the first half of an NFL game against the New York Giants at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J., Oct. 21, 2012. (Barton Silverman/The New York Times) less

Washington Redskins wide receiver Santana Moss (89) runs for a touchdown in the first half of an NFL game against the New York Giants at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J., Oct. 21, 2012. (Barton ... more

As a football player hoping to advance in the playoffs, Moss wants the Redskins to do what they've done as well as anyone in the NFL this season: run, run, run.

"That's big to me. Everywhere I've played and been successful, we ran the ball to pass the ball. Nowadays, a lot of teams fling the ball everywhere, and you want to be a part of that as a receiver," Moss said. "But when you really want to win games, you have to have both parts of your offense working, the air and the ground. It's great to see we have that here."

They do, indeed, thanks in part to the man known as RG3, who set a rookie QB record by running for 815 yards, and to another rookie, Alfred Morris, who finished second in the league with 1,613 yards rushing. Washington averaged an NFL-high 169.3 yards on the ground, and its opponent in the first round of the NFC playoffs Sunday is the Seattle Seahawks, who ranked No. 3 at 161.2, led by Marshawn Lynch.

Clearly, as much as the NFL is a passing league, it still helps to be able to run the ball.

"It doesn't have to be great, but you have to have an effective running game to be able to be successful," said two-time Super Bowl champion John Elway, now the Denver Broncos executive VP of football operations. "The reason I say that is because, if you get leads, you've got to be able to eat clock with it and you've got to be able to keep people honest, especially pass-rushing teams."

Elway was the quarterback and Terrell Davis was a 2,000-yard running back when the Broncos won the 1999 Super Bowl, the last time the league's leading rusher earned an NFL championship (their coach then was Mike Shanahan, currently with the Redskins). It's only happened three other times since the AFL-NFL merger in 1970, according to STATS LLC, and always by the same guy: Emmitt Smith, with the Dallas Cowboys in 1993, 1994 and 1996.

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A season's leader in yards passing, by the way, never has won a Super Bowl in that span, STATS said.